KARACHI: Residents of 18 villages located within the limits of the Darawat Dam project are resisting relocation without settlement of their claims, pressing the Water and Power Development Authority to ask the Sindh government to pay Rs200 million compensation to the affectees.

According to official sources and documents reviewed by Dawn on Sunday, the locals were resisting construction of Minor Canal-1 (MC-1), one of the components of the reservoir, which had resulted in an increase in the cost of the project.

The dam project, located at around 135 kilometres north-east of Karachi across Nai Baran in Thatta and Jamshoro districts, was launched to harness rainwater, which came to 156 cusecs and use it to irrigate 25,000 acres of land.

Wapda authorities stressed the need for relocating residents of the 18 villages before next monsoon, when the reservoir would be filled. The construction work on the main dam had been completed during 2012-13, whereas the construction activities on irrigation network were still in progress, thus, the overall physical progress was 91 per cent, said Wapda officials.

The irrigation network consisted of the main canal, the minor canal and three distributaries. The work on the main canal and three distributaries was almost complete while work on the minor canal (MC-1) had not yet been started “due to hurdles created by inhabitants of the area to get settled their issues of land acquisition,” said a recent communication between the executor of the dam, Wapda, and the Sindh government.

The villagers were demanding compensation for their lands which had been acquired for the alignment of MC-1. The issue of land ownership had also not been decided yet as the Board of Revenue had contended that the relevant revenue record was “destroyed during the disturbances triggerd by the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto”.

In this context, a meeting between stakeholders was held on Feb 28, 2013 in Karachi at which it was decided that a request would be made to the chief minister of Sindh to provide Rs200 million for early payment of compensation to the affectees of the reservoir but “even after a lapse of more than nine months, the funds have not been released,” said the communication.

Wapda has expressed fears that under the obtaining conditions, the contractor might quit work on MC-1, which was 14.6 kilometres long with a cultivation capacity of more than 9,200 acres, in case the land was not handed over for the canal’s construction during the current financial year.

“The contractor has lodged an ‘idle claim’ on account of staff and machinery deployed at the site since April 2013,” according to Wapda’s letter to Sindh government.

Referring to the Ecnec decision taken on Sept 12, 2012, under which, the Sindh government was supposed to “bear the cost of land acquisition, compensation and security arrangements from its own resources,” Wapda said, adding that the filling of the reservoir up to its designed high flood level (HFL) of R.L.120 metres (394ft) depended on the intensity and frequency of rainfall in the dam’s catchments area.

“The filling of reservoir will gradually submerge the existing infrastructure in the area, including Katcha and Pucca residential house etc., thus, affecting the residents of 18 villages living there for years,” said the letter.

Therefore, the water and power body stressed that relocation of villagers in the reservoir area was essentially required before coming monsoon.

It claimed the commissioner of Hyderabad and the DCs of Jamshoro and Thatta districts had been repeatedly asked “to start the process of relocation of population at the earliest to avoid any mishap or casualty during the reservoir filling operation in the coming monsoon.”

Official sources said that in order to address these issues, a high-level meeting between senior officials of Wapda and Sindh government was expected to be held at the Sindh secretariat on Tuesday (tomorrow).